Viewing room: Towards White

In these two works, I attempt to translate the period of waiting.

In the triptych, I have painted three bharvads (sheep herders) in conversation waiting for their sheep to graze. The diptych translates to another kind of waiting. The daily wage earner waits his turn, having honest thoughts about how well he can perform the task. The overlay of white is a reflection of pure thoughts.

In my work, the colour white represents the sea-coast land. These visuals are derived from my surrounding and childhood memories attached to salt land areas.
My work tells stories of ships around the world, stories of ships on land, sea and desert.
The series of works are inspired by salt land (mitha na aagar) where once there used to be a large expanse of sea, through time the sea has changed to sparkling salt land carrying its own stories.

The colour white expresses purity for me. Dreams and aspirations are also pure.  These give us a reason to live.
We come into the world absolutely pure and leave this world with purity.  It is in between that we live the life of colour and joy, fear and pain.
With this concept of whiteness, I have tried to blend the past, present and future.
These are moods that have been recreated partly from reality and partly from the realms of fantasy, dream, and romance. 
The world is formed of desire and narratives.  The visual world is the reflection of the world inside.  The physical world is the metaphor of the collective self.  The blurring of such distinctions between the physical world and the mental world lies at the heart of these paintings.  It is the central theme, concept, and concern in my work.

When one is asked to think about white – many of us imagine the vastness or the infinity (of space) with our closed eyes. White is strongly associated with notions of purity and even saintly. My interest in Sufism helped me to draw and construct two parallel spaces in this work titled - A White Chair on a White Bed- II. The work finds its roots in my lived experiences of both personal and the one that is spiritual.
A prayer mat that usually is woven with intricate and very fine Persian or Arabic designs is substituted here with text embedded in barcode. These three words that read ‘fiction’, ‘story’ and ‘history’ form the core of a poem written by the artist’s partner in response to the context. These words translate as afsana, kahani and tareekh in Urdu – run inside the frame posited in three directions, while the fourth reads khamoshi and dua are placed above the miniature sculpture of a white chair on a white bed that symbolise a personal space that lies exposed partially hinting at the nakedness of revelation
and truth.

I have experimented with all kinds of colours in my journey as an artist. But most of my works are subjugated by a single colour. For example, if the colour is red, the entire canvas will be filled with an amalgamation of light and dark shades of red. I then add motifs of flowers, birds, the moon, stars depending on the work and my instinct at the time of creating the work.

As I have progressed in my artistic endeavours, I have tried to bring out the essence of the colours I have used and have attempted to spread them out on the entire canvas. And when that essence emerged as the colour white, I realised that the colour white has become a quintessential part of my paintings.

The vastness of the images being created in the different shades of white also gives an experience, which is unparalleled. The colour white is not visible to the naked eye, but our whole existence and of everything around us is illuminated on the strength of this white light. If there was no light there would be only darkness.
So I feel that this white light which gushes across my works could take the viewer on a divine journey.
To the self. To experience an ultimate sense of peace.

“I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played."
Arvo Pärt, Estonian composer

White shall be the metaphor for glow.  A reflection for us to create stories. In these paintings white is a flow.  White is a musical note, moving rhythmically between different colours and hues.  Like the morning ball of fire, which pierces the light in my eyes. The shadowing white sprite, who stares and wonders…

White can be a calm.  A silence. Conversations take place in silence.  My muse, my white pet rooster, is the observer.  As he performs as an inspiration for these works, he becomes the observed. Manifesting his form following me everywhere quietly, he apparently becomes a tranquil dance of shadows.  Slowly bright, he awakens the morning with a white bite.  He turns into the dazzling morning clean dawn sky.  Rejoicing between some special clouds, flowing with a mane of a very perfect and bright red, while he streams amidst a serene, delicate white and light - blue.

With white there is a black. The white day paints into the night, turning it black. The swaying colours of the night contrast like myths to restore the sight of an emerging morning white. The new white weaves in one more day and its light.
In this sight ‘he’ looks up like a joyful celestial body in his feathery white.  Pure with all its might.  White in my eyes, one more day and it’s delight…

White is a representation of peace, which we are looking for in today's urban chaos, where we are surrounded by a lot of people but still searching for a path to find ourselves. The form of the maze and the light that respond to sensors are metaphors depicting the existential urban reality of life. The moment we find ourselves, we discover that everything around us changes for the best and life seems colourful.

I create works to celebrate my freedom.
I am not conscious of boundaries while creating them. Neither the frame, the surface, the textures or colours limit the space.
These works have white flung on the surface… birds flying in the vast sky.

The need to express various energies within large volumes of space to perpetuate the illusion of infinity excites me.
The animated process of creating my paintings allows for a liberated interaction of colours and textures which then give way to a form, unconstrained in its gesture and action.

I believe we are a combination of material and space (soul).
For me, white represents the purity of joyousness, unwavering and limitless.

The colour white energises me with a sense of liberation and a priority for human life. It brings with it a perfection, an honesty and a beginning of a new dimension of values. White is a space where solidarity and individualism coexist for me. These works created with the white narrative are expressions of my love for flora and fauna. Through these works, I attempt to pay tribute, in my own way, to our environment and our responsibility towards nurturing it.
The natural materials and time-consuming processes support me in celebrating the aesthetics, experience and beauty of

nature.